Blondie’s breakthrough hit “Heart of Glass” would wear many faces, its first being “The Disco Song”, which sounds far from the energetic “I Feel Love” Disco we know today—let alone the finished product—but rather the earlier, easier disco. Stein and Harry knew it was not yet going to be a hit; this recording in particular feels unfinished not only in music but in lyrics, missing its titular line.

Guitarist Chris Stein recalls coming up with the progression on a multitrack tape recorder which he was borrowing:

In the summer of 1974, I wrote a song and referenced the catchy feel of “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation which was a big hit then. Debbie and I began calling it “The Disco Song”.

• Against the Odds, pg. 15

Meanwhile, Debbie Harry says of her writing process that it felt like “a very high school king of thing, of falling in and out of love and getting your feelings hurt. But instead of dwelling on the pain, the words sort of shrugged off the breakup, like, "Oh well, that’s the way it goes”(15).